Bus rides, big crowds, and barrier-busting: reflections on Urbana 09

From December 27 to January 1, 16,000 people—15 from Knox—travelled to Illinois for Urbana, InterVarsity’s annual conference, to learn about critical global issues, worship with thousands of other Christ-followers, and hear how God has been demonstrating his faithfulness all over the world. Our own Ann Chow was particularly engaged in this event: As Urbana Canada Operations Coordinator, Ann was raising this baby long before anybody else got a peek at it. (Weird metaphor, granted.) Some of her reflections from Urbana 09 follow. (But first: pretend-you-were-there features! Watch the videos, check out the photos, read the testimonies.)

How was Urbana?
16,000 participants have returned home after experiencing Urbana and are continuing to process what they learned on their campuses, in their churches and in their workplaces. At Urbana, one method to process their morning Bible studies—held in their hotels in groups of 200, 500 and 1,000—was to use Twitter to “tweet” what they learned. As they came together for the morning Bible exposition sessions, they read a myriad of “tweets” of how others responded to God’s word, scrolling on the onstage screens.

I personally thought the program for this Urbana was the strongest and most integrated ever, and I’ve been to six! I was constantly challenged and touched by the message the speakers, videos, dance, theatre and worship teams communicated. My friend Cheryl Bear gave her testimony of what it was like to grow up First Nations in Canada. Immediately following Cheryl, a First Nations dance team from Alberta danced onstage. I wept for joy at the sight of God being worshipped through the First Nations’ culture and beauty. They closed Urbana by inviting the First Nations dancers to join the Urbana dance team and portrayed God dancing amongst them, a powerful statement.

Communion was co-led by Brenda Salter-McNeil, who is an African-American ordained minister, and Ramez Atallah, the Egyptian Bible expositor, whose first language is Arabic. I deeply appreciated their leadership, breaking down barriers and being role models to us.

High school seminar
An unexpected and pleasant surprise; I was invited to help lead the orientation seminar for our youngest participants, the high school students at Urbana. What a privilege to welcome them and help them get the most out of Urbana. The room was packed and I helped answer any logistical questions they had and suggested ways to spend their time wisely and process what they learned at Urbana. Emma, a student from Knox Presbyterian, my church in Toronto, zoomed in and sat right beside me!

Buses
Out of the total of 1800 Canadians, 950 rode down from Ontario and Montreal on 18 charter buses that we arranged. On December 27, arrival and registration day, I work up to an urgent call from my bus coordinator about our buses and angry bus drivers. After assessing the extent of the issue, we rushed to meet the buses as they arrived, quickly assured the drivers of our expectations and thoroughly enjoyed welcoming the sleepy bus riders to Urbana at the end of their 14-hour bus ride.

At the end of Urbana, at 1 a.m. on January 1, we made some adjustments to ease the drive for the Montreal bus, and I received an unexpected hug from an overjoyed bus driver!

Canadian staff team
Canadian staff and participants had an additional challenge even before they arrived into St. Louis for Urbana—they faced a new security hurdle as they went through US Customs on December 26. I was so grateful for our travel agent, who worked all day to reroute our staff. I was even more proud of our staff team as they quickly moved into action, contributing to Urbana in areas of leadership training, prayer, worship team, theatre team, guest program, pastor’s track, seminars, offering counting, registration, Canadian Lounge and exhibits. One of our IFES staff from Nigeria was on the same plane as the Christmas Day terrorist. Praise God for his safety.

Speaking of the Canadian Lounge and Inter-Varsity Canada exhibit, these areas were amazing! The setup and design was by far the best ever, and the staff was so hospitable and open to connecting with the participants. The lounge provided Nanaimo bars, Tim Hortons coffee, real Canadian maple syrup on pancakes, floor hockey, snowball bowling, and the opportunity for participants to share what they learned at Urbana and how they were discerning God’s direction in their lives.